Easy Talk: What is your favorite app?

Am I addicted to smartphone?

Tinder, like many dating apps, requires people to log in using their Facebook profiles, which users say adds a certain level of trust. Facebook, after all, is built on knowing people's real identities. Your Tinder photos are your Facebook photos. Users can reject or accept potential mates with a left or right swipe of their finger. If both people swipe right on Tinder, the app flashes "It's a match!" and the pair could exchange messages.

Because messages can only come from a person you've "right-swiped", unwanted advances are filtered. The system avoids one of the more vexing problems of older-generation dating websites, where users, especially women, can become inundated with messages from unwelcome suitors. They also offer a generation raised on Google and social media a chance to do background checks on potential mates.

"If you are in a bar and a guy comes to talk to you, you are immediately going to be freaked out and you don't want to talk to them because they are drunk," says Melissa Ellard,23, who uses Hinge and says she wouldn't have gone on a date in the past six months were it not for the app.

"When you are using the app, you get to look at their picture and see background information. You get to decide whether you want to continue it or not. When I meet someone, I want to know everything about them before I go on a date with them."

A recent Pew study found that some 9 percent of US adults say they've used dating sites or mobile dating apps, up from 3 percent in 2008.Of those who are "single and looking", the number jumps to 38 percent, according to the 2013 survey.